It is hard to not like the Legend at first glance – the price is most certainly right, it is light, and full-featured. The number of design peculiarities only becomes off-putting when one attempts to work with the Legend for any length of time, and trying to wedge a full-power, full-size PC into it is, while technically possible, difficult at best and impossible at worst. This may be endemic to the genre, though – it’s certainly not appropriate to put all the blame on Diablotek for midsize towers being tight inside. However, it is their obligation to consider their target market and the likely needs there. It is especially relevant when taking into account the new wave of highly overclockable CPUs and their inevitable rise to popularity – and the cooling requirements for an overclocked Bulldozer or i7 suggests the sort of aggressive air-cooling I attempted to wedge into the Diablo is going to become the new normal. What can Diablotek do to adapt? Only a few things suggest themselves as necessary: A few more millimeters in strategic locations being first and foremost. A half centimeter between the power supply and motherboard will help prevent a lost, dropped screw from shorting the motherboard traces to ground. A centimeter more width will fit some of the largest enthusiast heat sinks on the market, if without a supplemental fan. Enlarging or moving the heat-sink backplate cutout to match AMD motherboards would be simple, cheap, and save even more metal, further reducing weight and materials cost. The use of thumbscrews on the PCI hold-down bracket would make this an actually tool-less case; some kind of half-twist mechanism similar to the one used by the drive mounts would be even more ideal. USB3 compatibility will likely be the de-facto standard in the next generation of computers, but bears mentioning. A top-facing exhaust fan option would go a long way toward improving airflow with some cooling setups, and a way to cover unused PCI slots and expansion bays that does not require irreversible modifications to mount a disk drive would be a welcome improvement. Prominently featuring on the packaging the maximum heat-sink clearance would have helped with my expectations, too.
Given its niche and its price point, the Legend is not a bad case – but when attempting to deliver a feature-rich enthusiast case at this sort of price point, it is difficult to be surprised when corners are cut. If you are operating on a shoestring budget, then you are probably not going to be using giant, expensive coolers, or monster CPU’s requiring same. The Legend does not include courtesy fans at its $40 price point, however – if you were planning on replacing them yourself, this is an excellent corner to cut. If not, budget another few bucks for fans – you’ll have to bring your own, but Diablotek provided the mounting hardware. I find that the Scythe Kama is an excellent choice at around $10 a piece, but budget conscious system builders can find nice ones for as little as $5, and get away with perhaps as few as two (front intake and back exhaust). So for $50, the Legend is a decent case – if you’re aware of and willing to work around the limitations of a budget case.
